On March 11, 1972, KODE-TV newsman Bob Phillips and his photographer, Karl Lee, were invited by Thomas Hart Benton to film him at work on the mural that depicts “Joplin at the Turn of the Century.”

They traveled to Benton’s studio in Kansas City, set up their lights and captured images of Benton near the end of his life. They made three trips to the studio to get enough material to make a one-hour documentary that would premiere in connection with the unveiling of the mural for Joplin’s centennial in March 1973.

Fast forward nearly 40 years.

Darin McCann, a cameraman, stumbles across a faded copy of the documentary, “Thomas Hart Benton — The Last Mural,” at the television station. He makes a quick copy of it to show on a laptop computer to Phillips, who is ill and nearing the end of his life.

“This was sometime in March,” McCann said this week. “It was a faded film copy. I made a copy of it and took it to show Bob while he was in the hospital. I think it was his favorite documentary.

“We watched it for about 20 minutes. He said the color was washed out. But I told him the content was still there and that is what mattered most. It unfortunately was not airable.”

Specific instructions

Phillips died on the Saturday before Easter. He left specific instructions about things he wanted to happen.

“Shortly after he died, we went through his belongings to parse out to whomever he wanted the items to go to,” McCann said. “In a closet in his den were two two-inch master tapes. One of them was ‘The Last Mural.’

“He knew ‘The Last Mural’ would some day be valuable again.”

The equipment that was used to originally air the master tapes is no longer used by the television station. The tapes were sent to a company in Irvine, Calif., which converted them into a digital format.

The documentary will be shown at 6 p.m. Saturday on KODE in a tribute to both Phillips and Benton.

On Thursday, KODE held a news conference in the main lobby at City Hall, where the Benton mural hangs. During the making of the documentary, Phillips kept several items as mementos. Three of them — a handwritten letter from Benton signed to Phillips, a first-issue postcard with a cancellation postmark from the Truman Library, and a signed black-and-white photograph of Benton in his studio — were donated to the city and will be added to the “Making of the Mural” exhibit in the mezzanine at City Hall.

The items were presented to the city by Ted Easley, a broadcaster who once worked with Phillips. They were accepted by Mayor Mike Woolston.

‘Really excited’

But it is the film of Benton at work in his studio that is of interest to Steve Sitton, administrator of the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site in Kansas City.

“I’m really excited to hear about the discovery of the film,” he said in a phone interview Thursday. “I’ve never seen it and would love to have a copy for the Benton home archives.

“Thomas Hart Benton was quite methodical in his process while developing a painting. The ‘grand design’ he called it. Any footage of him at work can be very important. It is the best way to learn about his technique, especially if Tom narrates it himself.”

The documentary contains footage of Benton’s process in researching and detailing the scenes depicted in the mural relating to the early 1900s in Joplin. In one of the interviews with Phillips, Benton, a native of Neosho, talks about how he ultimately became an artist from his early years in Joplin. At age 17, he was drawing cartoons for the Joplin American newspaper.

Sitton said: “There were two other documentaries done of him painting murals. Encyclopedia Britannica did one of him in 1946-47 called ‘The Making of a Mural’ for the Harzfeld’s Department Store mural, and the Country Music Foundation did one in 1974 of him painting ‘The Sources of Country Music.’

“I’ve seen footage of him working on other paintings, but that was not the primary focus of those films, and they were not murals. And lots of photos are out there of him at work on the Truman Library mural (1961), but not much video. So, I believe this counts as the third mural documentary, and the second chronologically.”

The Joplin mural was not the last mural done by Benton. “The Sources of Country Music” was the last mural, but Benton would not have an opportunity to sign it before his death of heart failure in early 1975.

During the news conference, John Hoffman, general manager of KODE-TV and KSNF-TV, said: “The mural speaks for itself as a work of art. The documentary is a work of art as well. Because of costs and time, you don’t see this kind of local journalism as much anymore.”

Hoffman said it was important to tell the story of the mural again because two generations have passed since its unveiling. “They don’t understand what we have,” he said.

Former colleague

Larry Meacham, former news director at KODE-TV and a longtime Phillips friend, talked about the early days of television in Joplin, and about how Phillips and Lee worked together as a team.

“Phillips was like Benton in that he was meticulous about what he did,” Meacham said. “Lee had the opposite personality, but he was a master behind the camera. Phillips was precise in his writing and insistent about his editing. He was correct, and he was considered fair.

“He was like Benton in another way: You left them alone to do their work.”

Meacham said he was at Joplin’s City Hall in 1973 when Benton brought the mural to town. He said he asked Benton: “Is it finished?”

He said Benton, whom he described as “a cranky old cuss,” gave him a ornery look and then said: “What do you mean, sonny? Nothing in art, poetry, writing or painting is finished.”

As for Thursday’s tribute to his friend, Meacham said, “Bob Phillips would be proud of this event.”





Former newsman

As a journalist, Bob Phillips worked at KODE-TV for many years, producing more than 500 in-depth segments of “The Phillips File.” It focused on local people and history. He also produced several documentaries before retiring in 2000.

Source: KODE-TV